A Half Score of Songs

[Merior]

Well, I couldn't resist posting something here even though it reveals my existance to the board at large. Below are ten songs that I thought over and wonder if Doug's metagift might find interesting and some of what it could do with them. I have put in links to pages with the lyrics of all the songs I mention, just to make things easier for people to remind themselves of "What is that one again?"
"Nowhere Man" by the Beatles is a song that came to mind as interesting for Doug. Going from the first two lines ("He's a real nowhere man, Sitting in his nowhere land,") the idea came to mind of it being able to banishing someone away into some sort of limbo. Of course, when the song ends they'd likely just reappear after their short "rest" but it would be handy to put somebody out of a fight for a bit or a hostage out of harms way.
"Go West" by the Pet Shop Boys has a number of fun lines in it which suggest that it could be used to grant flight to Doug and anybody he is holding hands with. The obvious drawback to using this song would be that your choice of directions to travel in would be rather limited...
"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" by AC/DC is one that I remember reading being used in the Spellsinger series of books. One look at the lyrics shows that it has potential for a rather direct and subtle combat song, calling up a rather blunt assassain. Of course, if this is one of those songs which went horribly wrong when Doug tried getting a power from it I can imagine that he would be the target of that persons attentions.
"Cold As Ice" by No Angels seems to be a song which could either grant a handy power or else backfire rather badly. If LT's mind got hold of the line "You're as cold as ice" then it might work and grant the ability to literally cool people off, freezing them rather badly. On the other hand, if it somehow went wrong then having that happen to somebody nearby whom the Doug cares for while muting his feelings to them ("Feelings fade away") it could be rather... unpleasent.
"I Don't Like Mondays" by Boomtown Rats is next up with three different suggestions for what could happen due to it. It could cause all machines and electronics to either fail or go haywire for the duration, strip out a compulsion or mind controling device from somebody, or else it could turn somebody into a smiling and sadistic psychopath.
"Birdhouse in your soul" by They Might Be Giants seems tailor made to call up some sort of friendly electrical spirit. I can almost see a bluebird made of crackling electricity trying its very best to be helpful, although as defined by the song it can definately make some dangerous mistakes ("I'd be fired if that were my job, After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts").
Just for fun and the WTF? factor, I think that Doug should be able to get the obvious thing from the song "Combine Harvester (Brand New Key)" by the Wurzels. Having a brand new, shiny and rather heavy combine harverster appear where he wants it to for the duration of the song seems to be the sort of thing that he'd find amusing. If nothing else, it could be made to appear above an oppenent or put down as a piece of cover. Though if you wanted to have the song squib on him, it could simply give him a key which worked in the locks of any combine harvester...
In the continuing line of silly songs with useful effects "Lily The Pink" as done by the Scafold could produce a potion which could cure almost anything but have unpredictable side effects as it over does things by a fairly large margin. It might fix whatever is wrong, but there would definately be more problems as a result.
"The Time Warp" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show is a song that might seem powerful, but I still think that it might be best as an example of the sort of thing which is effectively useless. Imagine it's only power is to effectively make the song itself repeat until something was done to make it stop.
"Heaven Can Wait" by Meatloaf seems like a sort of last ditch song, keeping Doug alive or stablizing him when some serious hurting has occured and he hasn't got a better song available. Basically just doing enough to stop him from kicking the bucket if he can get the song running in time.

[Bob Schroeck]

First off, thanks for the suggestions, and especial thanks for the links to the lyrics; that's very convenient.
Now, to address some of the suggestions. A few of these songs I've addressed in other threads, or have already thought about.
Dirty Deeds I have long envisioned giving him any of the various "tools" it mentions, but for reasons of personal style and idiom, Doug would invariably choose the TNT; then, under V&V mechanics he'd often "pull his punch" on the damage to the point where its effect was merely cosmetic.
I Don't Like Mondays I had suggested as an alternate theme song for DW2; I had also considered it as a song that would make a boomer go rogue.
Time warp I've already covered elsewhere (the search function doesn't seem to be working right now for me, so I can't link it here) -- I saw it as bringing in instances of himself from up and down his own personal timeline; a temporal fugue sort of power.
Okay, now the new stuff.
I like the idea of Nowhere Man as a banishment song; that's rather cool.
Go West I'll take under advisement.
Cold As Ice reminds me somewhat of the old Foreigner song by the same name, which I have long envisioned as giving a recipient ice powers in the same way that Invisible Touch granted TK. It could work either way, I suspect. (Oh, and for another song like that, I'm So Hot For Her (And She's So Cold) by the Stones -- Doug gets fire powers and a woman of his choice gets ice powers. I had thought about doing that with Lisa as a followup to "Sailor Loon" but dropped it when plot developments went elsewhere.)
Birdhouse In Your Soul -- quite frankly, I love TMBG, but the songs are so twisted and surreal most of the time that I can't really get a good handle on what they might be capable of in Doug's hands. This suggestion is as good as any.
Combine Harvester (Brand New Key) has got to be weirder than any TMBG song I've ever heard, though. This is one I've got to go find just to hear what it sounds like.
Lily the Pink. Uh-huh. Is this the point where I start backing away slowly and avoid making sudden moves? Seriously, this sounds fun enough that it might be worth adding a "dueling potions" scene with Doug and Urd in DW5 just so he can use it.
Heaven Can Wait. I like this -- especially the fact that he has to be in good enough shape to know he needs to use it, and can still do so. Some nice auto-limiters in there.
-- Bob
(Edit: bad markup)
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[zojojojo]

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Heaven Can Wait. I like this -- especially the fact that he has to be in good enough shape to know he needs to use it, and can still do so. Some nice auto-limiters in there.

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This smacks of something you'd have slaved to a panic button, right before a mayday call on the comm system... Kind of a press-here-to-save-your-ass button or something -Z
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If architects built buildings the way programmers write programms, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
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If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[Bob Schroeck]

That's a good way to put it. Yeah, sounds about right. Now I just need to check what year it was released...

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Merior]

I am glad you like the "new" ones that I suggested, though I'll appologise for not checking if they had been brought up before now. It was no problem to put in the lyric links, a couple of minutes with a search engine provided them when I was checking that I was thinking of the right songs so there was little reason not to put them.
Nowhere Man is a good song, but the main problem with it would be that it only lasts for 2m 30.
In reference to Go West, checking around found me this page which mentions a few different remixes of "Go West". Including one which should be long enough at a supposed 10m 13s...
After a little more searching I managed to find a couple of pages with legitimate looking samples of Combine Harvester (Brand New Key) and Lily the Pink. This version of Lily the pink isn't quite the same version as the lyrics I linked to earlier, but is basically the same thing with a few different (and additional) verses so it should give you a feel for the song.

[Bob Schroeck]

Don't worry about not looking to see if things were talked about before; there are so many venues where I've discussed Doug's songs, and even if it had been on ezBoard, there's no guarantee it would have been in this forum.
And thanks for the links; I'm opening up those pages right now, and I'll check them out. Thanks!

-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.